2025年初（和更早）的許多其他動畫寶石

This can be illustrated by returning to the previous anecdote: another short film I thought I had missed at a local festival was Nana Kawabata’s The Point of Permanence. Its trailer had caught my attention, and a bit of research indicated that I wasn’t alone; she’s been able to share morphing landscapes that feel like a deity peeking into humanity not just through plain animation, but in exhibits, installations, and books as well. While lamenting that I’d missed a chance to watch her work, I looked it up one more time and noticed two things: one, that she’d been nominated for the Asia Digital Award FUKUOKA, and two, that the site to showcase the winners features the actual works. Stumbling upon a channel that gets just about a dozen views while sharing gems that have limited availability is the type of rewarding experience you can get out of alternative animation, if you put just a bit of interest into it. Don’t be scared to give it a try!

Was Kawabata’s work worth the excitement, though?答案很清楚。 The Point of Permanence challenges itself to simultaneously tell the story of the cells that compose a living being, of one individual, and of humanity as a whole. The lines between them are blurred; or rather, weren’t they hazy in the first place? At all levels, we organize ourselves in a similarly orderly fashion, requiring coordinated repetitive action for our collective growth. It’s no surprise, then, that the smallest units inside our bodies seem to have human silhouettes of their own—stylized into universally recognizable stickman figures. They pulsate endlessly, as they navigate systems that are reminiscent of both tiny snapshots of biology and history at large. The awe of life is delivered by instinctively satisfying visuals as clearly as its preoccupations about it become sound, growing more uncomfortable as everything expands and overlaps.

This short film’s triumphs are many and not particularly subtle. Above all else, Kawabata’s work impresses in the way it can stretch the exact same concept for slightly over 10 minutes. The enchanting morphing animation that had already caught my eye in trailers is what kept me glued to the screen for its entire runtime, constantly finding ways to iterate on that seemingly endless cycle. In that progression, you notice its ability to evoke scale and expansion; despite having no objective point of reference, and with drawings that already begin with a high degree of density, it still feels like it takes us from the microscopic to the infinite.

In the end, Kawabata doesn’t seem to interpret this eternal growth that we’ve historically sought (a biological tendency, given the parallels she draws?) as liberating, however. After so much advancement, development, and increases in complexity, the cell of humanity that felt so massive slowly fades into the distance. From this still point of view, it’s actually becoming smaller, trapped into an increasingly tiny dot that it can’t escape from—the point of permanence.

Just by checking out a few more offerings from those recent awards, one can find a few more interesting works; amusingly, that includes one with very similar traits to The Point of Permanence. HuaXu Yang’s Skinny World too draws parallels between the human body and society, specifically to cities, as two meticulously arranged systems of functions. Despite the complex imagery that gives form to those ideas, he’s able to evoke by subtraction and implication as well. This process results in a surprisingly aKarenble, surreal landscape that might leave you wondering if our society is merely replicating animalistic, fleshy behaviors. And if you’re not into this type of arthouse efforts that speak to the senses above all else, you can swing the other way around to Li Shuqin’s To the Moon and Back: an uncomplicated, honest story about processing grief at a point where you don’t quite know that feeling; only its pain, fresh and new.

It’s no surprise that many stories about loss are framed from the eyes of a child. It’s not simply due to those experiences being the ones that stick with us in the long run, but also because the lack of preconceptions about death allow us to explore it without the baggage that we inevitably accumulate later in life. It’s a vision of loss that doesn’t get diluted in thoughts about repercussions that we may not understand. And yet, it’s also materially tied to elements of that small world that surrounds us when we’re young, like a tadpole that we may have raised. What stood out the most about this short film was the creative choice to retain visible remnants of the previous frame when moving to the next one—an attempt to capture a feeling akin to paint-on-glass animation, which is also reminiscent of the marks left by the lives that have left us. Although not strictly autobiographical, it’s a very personal short film in a way that gets across clearly to the viewer.

If we started this corner by acknowledging the barriers of entry to independent animation on a material level, I want to let To the Moon and Back serve as an example that the idea that they’re inaccessible as art is silly. Inscrutable arthouse pieces do exist, and they can be an excellent way to free yourself from dogmatic beliefs about what storytelling should be like; and whether it’s even necessary to tell a story for art to be poignant, for that matter. But at the same time, many of these independent short films are simple, personal tales that resonate through honesty, that become memorable by choosing uniquely fitting styles and techniques that commercial animation would be afraid of. So leave those fears behind yourself and follow artists, keep an eye on festivals and specialized sites, or I don’t know, follow vtubers with a good eye for indie folks. That helps too.

Did you think those were all the animated works that stood out to us? Of course not

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto/The Apothecary Diaries is fundamentally great in ways that should surprise no one now that we’re halfway through its second season. The source material lures you in with a charming cast, whose antics and episodic mysteries are later used to assemble overarching puzzles. Although the scriptwriting ought to be a bit more confident in spots—the dialogue sometimes goes out of its way to reiterate clues—the actual plotting is bold and always very satisfying in retrospect. Our coverage of the first season highlighted those qualities, as well as the understated system of success they built for all directors to shine. Although that remains true, reckless scheduling has caught up to it; a less extreme case than the issues My Happy Marriage has gone through, though similar in nature. Their attempts to smooth over the troublesome schedule by dragging in a capable studio like C-Station to produce one in three episodes past a certain point led to notable results at first, yet gradually less consistent as they too got stuck in a cycle of crunch. Please give them props though, they’ve done more for the series than the credits convey! Great show, solid team, somewhat held back by inexcusable planning. As many other people, Hunter x Hunter 2011 was the TV series that helped me discover Yoshihiro Kanno’s animation. Ever since then, I’ve been following his career on and off, even in the types of shows that you wouldn’t expect from his reputation. For as much as I encourage everyone to broaden their understanding of artists, though, there’s no denying that Kanno shines best in action anime. His timing is forceful, but especially when he’s storyboarding as well, his setpieces have palpable flow. He has a tendency to overwhelm the screen through 2DFX and debris overload akin to the work Nozomu Abe, despite their stylizations being nothing alike. For starters, rather than aiming for Abe’s more picturesque sense of awe, Kanno uses those effects to indicate aspects like directionality; both in an objective way (where do the blows come from?) and subjective ones (how can we use elements like the direction of the rain to indicate a power imbalance?). This is all to say that I’m glad Solo Leveling fans seem to have realized how lucky they are to have him as an action director, because he deserves all the flowers. Although I was reluctant to get around to the third season of Re:Zero when it originally began its broadcast for reasons that now go without saying, I finally binged it in time to watch the final episodes as they aired. The series is in no position to compete with the seamless, immersive quality of the first season’s production, and having replaced series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Masaharu Watanabe also makes it struggle to reach the same heights of catharsis for its character beats—he operated on a different level of ambition. Although this results in a bit of a lesser season, I wouldn’t point at the new team (especially not with Haruka Sagawa as the new designer) so much as the arc itself being inherently less resonating; rather obviously so when its grand speech echoes one that carried more weight. It is, however, consistently entertaining to see every volcanic character in its world locked inside the same city after an exposition-heavy season. While Vincent Chansard’s transcendental draftsmanship understandably got the most applause, I’d point to Hamil’s constant appearances and the Archbishop of Lust’s morphing animation as the MVPs. The sequences where she unnaturally regenerates her body are not only technically impressive, but as unpleasant as she ought to be. While I didn’t get around to finishing the show, shout out to Shin Itagaki for his work on Okitsura. I’m not exactly surprised that his reputation among people who aren’t really in the know (or at least aware of his full resume) doesn’t match his ability, and a strangely crafted piece of Okinawa propaganda certainly won’t change that. All that said, I’m always happy to appreciate his work; the circumstances that surround him, though, not so much. His Teekyuu tenure proved that he could take the snappy timing that characterized his animation to the extreme, using posing alone to create an economical masterpiece. However, his eccentric artist blood has constantly pushed him in other directions. Even without citing the most controversial project he was tied to, shows like Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? showcased the type of volumetric ambition that a team like theirs simply couldn’t aspire to without crumbling… which is exactly what happened. Okitsura feels almost like an answer to that: occasionally built upon intricate character arc and bold framing, but willing to abbreviate the movement in classically Itagaki ways. In multiple ways, a romcom not quite like anything else. SK8 Extra Part was finally released a while back, living up to the promise of fun vignettes for the cast. Separated from the first season’s overarching narrative (though hinting at the direction that the sequel’s plot will likely take), those daily life moments range from worthy of a chuckle to very cute. While the ridiculous energy of the original show was its greatest asset, this OVA proves that some relationships have charming enough chemistry to still work in a more low-key situation. Here’s hoping that season 2 lives up to its predecessors, and that Hiroko Utsumi’s friends can show up like they did here. If you’ve been enjoying the combination of Gosho Aoyama‘s work with irreverent, Kanada-leaning animation in YAIBA, I’d strongly recommend watching episode #1155 of Detective Conan. Don’t let that large number scare you: it’s an original, ridiculous gag episode built entirely around the style of Hiroaki Takagi. Neither he nor the ex-Wanpack artists he surrounds himself with are newcomers to the series, but they rarely can go on a rampage with all limiters off in the way they did. The likes of Toshiyuki Sato appeared in the same way they’re doing for YAIBA; unsurprisingly, given that they both offer the possibility to have fun with pose-centric, loose animation. Convergent evolution within Aoyama series, I suppose. A good kind! Otona Precure—a series of spinoffs for the franchise both aimed and featuring adults—has been a mixed experiment. For its undeniable issues, ranging from certain Precure tropes feeling extraneous in this context to a subpar production, the 2023 series Kibou no Chikara was ambitious as well as angry in amusing ways. While I can’t say the same thing about Mirai Days, as it was a more straightforward sequel to Mahoutsukai Precure without much to state, it allowed Yuu Yoshiyama to go more ballistic than ever in the franchise. As the lead animator with a hand in every single highlight, be it from intervening in every step of the process to becoming a link with very interesting guest animators, Yoshiyama elevated Mirai Days’ experience way above what you’d expect from it on paper. What would happen if the Precure grew older? Kibou no Chikara’s answer was about time, the changes in our planet, and adult preoccupations. Yoshiyama delivers a more straightforward answer: they would punch damn hard, because magical girls are cool as hell sometimes. Since we published a lengthy piece about Kenji Nakamura’s entire career not long ago, I didn’t feel the need to talk about the Mononoke movies again; especially not given that they’re meant to be a trilogy which is yet to be completed. That said, the second film led by Nakamura and his right-hand man Kiyotaka Suzuki was recently released in theaters, so I simply want to issue the periodic reminder that you should check out the series. As unique as commercial anime gets, and by comparing each instance of it, a fascinating illustration of Nakamura’s constant evolution.

This has been quite the multi-part marathon about animation we published today, so we’ll be wrapping up here. And remember, if a work that resonated with you strongly wasn’t mentioned here, that must be considered a personal attack that invalidates you and the personality you wrote around a piece of fiction. Or perhaps that’s not how it works and fandom spaces are poisonous, who can tell! For as many things we try to keep track of with a rather omnivorous diet, it’s impossible to watch everything—and it would simply be disingenuous to fake interest in works that haven’t piqued our curiosity.

As always though, feel free to ask about anything else… unless it’s about a certain famous fighter who recently became a kid (again) or a group of dramatic girls who confused bands for therapists, since there are already drafts written for those. I didn’t go insane watching Ave Mujica just to bottle up those feelings, even if that would be very in-character for the series.

I know I said I would leave the raving about Ave Mujica for another day, but can you believe that one of the outstanding music videos they released during its broadcast was produced by Saho Nanjo’s usual team? Featuring the likes of Setsuka Kawahara in charge of the watercolor and sand animation, Haruka Teramoto in charge of the CG and photogrammetry, Kana Shmizu for its photomontages of nightmarish longing hands. Just a few months ago, I pointed at them as one of my coolest creator discoveries in recent times, and here they are in the (so far) series I’ve enjoyed the most in 2025. Nanjo & co have the radical edge (and unconventional choices of technique) you’d associate with avant-garde animation, but also the ability to adapt and capture specific moots that makes them a viable option for commercial, narrative works. They sublimated the band’s gothic aesthetic and the fact that these girls are often more emotion than person into an incredible expressionistic work of animation.

Support us on Patreon to help us reach our new goal to sustain the animation archive at Sakugabooru, SakugaSakuga (作畫): Technically drawing pictures but more specifically animation. Western fans have long since appropriated the word to refer to instances of particularly good animation, in the same way that a subset of Japanese fans do. Pretty integral to our sites’brand. Video on Youtube, as well as this SakugaSakuga (作畫): Technically drawing pictures but more specifically animation. Western fans have long since appropriated the word to refer to instances of particularly good animation, in the same way that a subset of Japanese fans do. Pretty integral to our sites’brand.博客。 Thanks to everyone who’s helped out so far!

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